


Per Aspera

by regenderate



Category: Doctor Who
Genre: Gen, Kid Fic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-05-03
Updated: 2019-05-03
Packaged: 2020-02-16 11:11:48
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 12,613
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18690322
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/regenderate/pseuds/regenderate
Summary: The Doctor, already grieving, finds an infant crying in the arms of a dead mother.She doesn't have much of a choice what to do next.(Fic exploring the idea of Thirteen raising a human child.)





	Per Aspera

The Doctor had long since known that the most brilliant things happened when she least expected it. She had just finished convincing herself she’d never be happy again when she’d met Rose Tyler, her TARDIS always landed in the wrong place and gave her such adventures, she had time and time again realized what would save the world just when she had given up hope.

Still. She always managed to forget. She failed something, she lost someone, and she was right back where she started, thinking she would never be happy again, wondering what the point was to being alive for so long when everything grew and died and left her alone.

She hadn’t felt that yet, in this body. She had hit the ground running, almost literally, made friends right away and all. She had almost forgotten what it was like when she was left alone.

And now she was alone.

There had been a disastrous battle. Graham hadn’t made it out. Ryan and Yaz, shell-shocked, grieving, traumatized, had asked to go back to Sheffield.

“Just for a while,” Yaz said. “To figure stuff out. Come back in a year, maybe.”

She had gotten into the TARDIS and taken it right to that same spot a year later, and Yaz and Ryan had both moved away. A (very illegal) look at their records said that they had gone together to America, Oregon, to be exact, far far away from their old lives.

The Doctor didn’t try to track them down.

Which left her alone and dejected, lying on the TARDIS floor and replaying her times with Ryan and Graham and Yaz over and over in her head, remembering everyone laughing in the TARDIS, running towards a new adventure, trying strange food from street carts and getting lost in labyrinthine alleys.

It was the TARDIS that got her back on her feet. A siren from the console. She dragged herself into a standing position, fully aware that her hair was a snarly mess, and took the call.

A distress signal.

Of course it was.

The Doctor sighed and started going through the motions of takeoff, feeling like each limb was made of solid lead.

“Couldn’t you have just let me lie there?” she grumbled at the TARDIS. “Was doing just fine, you know.”

There wasn’t any response. Not that she’d expected one. Just the grinding of the engines as the TARDIS landed, and then silence. She gave the central column one last dirty look, and then she walked to the door, not knowing (not really caring) what she’d find.

She walked out onto a street lined with houses she recognized as having been made and sent into space in one piece, part of the first human colonies. By force of habit, she sniffed the air-- tangy, a little sweet. New Earth, then. Early New Earth, before they had gotten into genetic engineering and cats and blue skin.

She looked around. There didn’t seem to be anything worthy of distress. No one was even out and about. She was just about to go back into the TARDIS with anger on her tongue when she heard it: a thin wail, coming from the open door of one of the houses.

She hesitated for a moment. She didn’t have to investigate. She didn’t want to investigate. But-- well-- this was what she did, wasn’t it? Showed up on random planets, investigated their problems, saved the universe.

_When people need help, I never refuse._

If only that were still true.

Still. She might as well investigate.

She walked to the door of the home. She still felt like she was swimming through tar; every step was a near-herculean effort. But she managed to get to the doorway. She knew the layout of this sort of home, built from a kit. She knew that the living room opened out to the street, and then there was a tiny kitchen to one side and a staircase in the corner with two bedrooms up above. She didn’t have to go past the living room, though, to find what she was looking for: a human infant, crying in the arms of its dead mother, whose last act must have been pressing the distress beacon in her hand.

The Doctor weighed her options. The baby’s father or any other parents the baby had had (the Doctor could never keep track of humans and their gendered words) probably weren’t around, or had already been killed. She would need to find out what had killed them, of course, and find a way to stop it before it killed anything else, but--

Well.

The baby needed someone.

The Doctor scooped it up, careful not to disturb the mother’s body. The baby quieted instantly, looking up at the Doctor with curious brown eyes, and the Doctor tried not to let it tug at her heartstrings. This was a human, she reminded herself, who’d grow old and leave her like everyone else, and there was no use getting attached.

Except-- the baby was so little, and her eyes were still red around the edges from crying, and she so clearly needed love, and the Doctor couldn’t not love her, after all that.

“All right,” she said to the baby. “Let’s get you into the TARDIS.”

She resolved to come back later and sort out whatever had killed the parents. For now, she eased open the TARDIS door and said, “I know you did this deliberately.”

The TARDIS hummed in response.

After all, the most brilliant things happened when the TARDIS knew the Doctor least expected them.

* * *

She named the baby Astra. It was a human word for the stars, and the Doctor wanted little Astra to know that she was just as important as all the stars in the sky. She tracked down her old cradle, too, with her name on the side and the star mobile up top, and brought it into her own barely-used bedroom. Melody Pond had slept in that cradle, however briefly, and, years and years back, the Doctor’s own children and grandchildren. It was a family tradition, insofar as the Doctor had a family, or traditions.

“There you go,” she murmured to Astra, letting one of Astra’s tiny hands curl around her finger. “A nice new home. Now, what do you like to eat? If you were a little older, you could tell me, but I suppose I’ve got to figure it out for myself, haven’t I?”

Astra cooed in response, and the Doctor smiled in spite of herself.

“Right, then,” she said. “Let’s get a shift on.” She picked Astra up out of the cradle and brought her to the kitchen. She opened the fridge. She barely knew what regular humans ate, much less children, but the TARDIS usually kept whatever best suited her current companions on hand, anyway. Sure enough, there were three bottles of milk lined up, one next to the other, and the Doctor felt herself release a breath she didn’t know she had been holding. She could do this. She sent a silent thank-you to the TARDIS as she took out one of the bottles and then looked back down at Astra. If she were a human woman, capable of feeding Astra with her body, the milk would be warm, wouldn’t it? Hoping she was right, she stuck the milk in the microwave and programmed it to heat to a temperature she thought would be safe for a baby. Fifteen seconds later, it was out, and pleasantly warm in her hand, so she offered it to Astra, who was still cradled in one of the Doctor’s arms. She didn’t seem particularly interested, so the Doctor took the bottle with her and brought Astra into the console room.

Piloting the TARDIS one-handed while holding a baby wasn’t the easiest thing she’d ever done, but the Doctor managed it. She had been running through a painfully short mental list of old friends who might still be alive and willing to help, but in the end, she wound up in Sheffield, on the curb outside Yaz’s old flat, two years after she’d dropped off Yaz and Ryan. She sat in the doorway of the TARDIS, looking up at Yaz’s building, Astra curled in her arms.

She had only meant to look, look and then find another human who could help her figure out how to raise this child, but just as she was about to go back inside and try again she saw Najia Khan coming towards her, calling her name. The Doctor hesitated, but she knew this was a conversation she had to have. Maybe the conversation she had come here to have. She stood up and stepped forward, letting the TARDIS door swing shut behind her.

Najia came to a stop in front of her, out of breath.

“Sorry to run at you like that,” she said.

“That’s all right,” the Doctor said, feeling awkward and sad and like she really missed her friends. “Happens all the time.”

“Yaz told me what happened,” Najia said. “Before she moved away.”

“Oregon, right?” the Doctor asked.

“Have you seen her?” Najia asked.

“No,” the Doctor said. “Didn’t think she’d want that. Didn’t want to push it. Is she all right? And Ryan?”

“They’re coping,” Najia said. “Yaz is saving for university. She calls me every week, tells me how she’s doing. You know, I was mad at you, Doctor. For doing that to my daughter.”

“You have every right to be mad,” the Doctor said, meaning every word.

Najia looked the Doctor in the eyes, searching her face. Whatever she was looking for, she must have found it, because she said, “I think you need kindness more than anger. Yaz loved traveling with you, you know.”

“I know,” the Doctor said, her voice hollow. “I’m sorry.”

Najia nodded at the bundle in the Doctor’s arms.

“So whose is that, then?” she asked.

“No one’s,” the Doctor said. “Which I think makes her mine, now. Found her in the arms of her dead mother far in the future.”

“Poor thing,” Najia murmured, looking down at Astra. “Does she have a name?”

“I don’t know what it was,” the Doctor said. “I’m calling her Astra.”

“That’s beautiful,” Najia said, a glow in her eyes, and the Doctor remembered that Najia was a mother, that she would do anything to protect her children, and she decided right then to take a chance.

“Don’t suppose you know the first thing about childrearing,” she said. “Been a while since I’ve been a parent. And, you know, not to humans.”

“Well, my kids turned out all right,” Najia said. “Are you going to be sticking around?”

“I don’t know yet,” the Doctor said. “Hadn’t thought about it. Might as well, I suppose. How are the schools here?”

Najia laughed.

“You’ve got a few years yet before you need to worry about schools,” she said. “But I’ll show you how to hold her properly, if you like.”

“Am I doing it wrong?” the Doctor asked, suddenly filled with worry. Astra was so small, and so delicate, and there were a million ways she could get hurt, and for a brief moment the Doctor’s fear eclipsed her sadness. “Am I going to hurt her? Don’t want to hurt her.”

“No, no,” Najia said. “You’ve just got to support the head. May I?” She held out her arms, and the Doctor passed Astra to her. With practiced hands, she held Astra upright, one hand around her tiny waist, one up her back and with a hand cupping the head. “Like this,” she explained, and passed Astra back to the Doctor.

And so began the Doctor’s parenting adventure. It was a boring kind of adventure, but unexpectedly full of adrenaline at the same time. She took up residence on that curb, popping up to the Khans’ when she had a question or just when she wanted companionship. She and Astra became regular visitors for tea (tea at Yaz’s, part of her always thought, the melancholy part she was always sure to push as far down in her mind as possible), and Sonya eventually stopped asking why the Doctor was hanging around “two years after ruining Yaz’s life.” The Doctor never did tell the Khans that, in her personal timeline, she had arrived a single day after that last battle.

The Doctor scanned Astra with the TARDIS that first day and decided she was around three months old. She spent the first week trying to decide whether she was going to actually be this infant’s mother or if she was just a caregiver, just passing through until she could find someone better for the job. Astra finally made the decision for her when one day the Doctor handed her to Najia and Astra immediately started crying and reaching back for her. The Doctor knew, then, that she was Astra’s new mum, whether she liked it or not. She couldn’t leave this kid to anyone else, not when she had already lost one mother.

She made sure to hold Astra as often as she could, to expose her to all kinds of music, to read her bedtime stories. Najia had let her take a few parenting books left over from when Yaz and Sonya had been kids, and the Doctor had done hours of research in the TARDIS library while Astra slept, a baby monitor sticking out of her coat pocket, trying to figure out how to handle this situation. The books all seemed to contradict each other, but everyone (well, everyone worth agreeing with) seemed to say that human babies definitely needed love and sustenance and support, and those were all things the Doctor could provide.

She got a job at the local university by filling out some applications and flashing her psychic paper, mostly because she wanted to fit in around here, to have connections with people, but also because Najia said it might help her get past her grief, the sadness that sometimes kept her in the TARDIS for days at a time, able to do little more than give Astra basic care. She brought Astra with her to work, most days, rocking her first in the old cradle and then later a brand new stroller at the front of the classroom; her students didn’t seem to mind. Most of them thought it was sweet, even. She took Astra to a human doctor, too, and realized she didn’t have her immunization history, didn’t even know what babies got vaccinated against on New Earth, which became an awkward conversation.

* * *

Yaz came back to visit when Astra was nine months old, six months after the Doctor’s arrival in Sheffield. Najia had warned her in advance, of course, and the Doctor had planned on steering clear of the Khans’, even considering just skipping the week entirely with the TARDIS. The only reason she stayed put at all was that she was nervous about taking Astra on any sort of trip in the TARDIS so early in her life-- the TARDIS didn’t always go where the Doctor wanted to, and she didn’t want to take risks when there was a child involved. Instead, she sequestered herself away, geared up for a week of playing with Astra and going to work and absolutely nothing else.

She should have known better.

It was the very first day when she came home from work, pushing Astra in her stroller, to see Yaz on the curb, slumped against the TARDIS, fast asleep. The Doctor weighed her options: she could wake up Yaz, she could try and get herself and Astra into the TARDIS without Yaz stirring, or she could turn and walk as fast as she could in the other direction.

She owed it to Yaz to hear what she had to say, the Doctor decided, and she unlocked the TARDIS door, picked up Astra out of the stroller, and maneuvered the stroller inside before sitting down on the curb next to Yaz. She didn’t actually know how to do this next part.

“Yaz?” she asked tentatively. Astra was babbling away against her shoulder, the sort of baby talk the Doctor had gotten used to hearing in the background of her life. She reached out an arm and shook Yaz’s shoulder. “Yaz?” she asked again.

Yaz jumped awake, flailing at the Doctor. The Doctor jumped up and away, shifting Astra to the other side of her body, before Yaz blinked in the daylight and seemed to process where she was.

“Sorry,” she said. “Jet lagged.”

“That’s all right,” the Doctor said, sitting back down. She made sure to leave a respectable distance between her and Yaz, in case Yaz hated her.

“Mum didn’t tell me you were here,” Yaz said, almost accusingly. “Like I wasn’t going to see the TARDIS.”

“Sorry,” the Doctor said. “We didn’t know if you’d want to see me.”

“Why are you here?” Yaz asked. “And is that baby human?”

“She’s mine,” the Doctor said. “I rescued her. And I was here because I was sad, initially, but your mum’s been quite the help in trying to raise Astra here.” She hesitated. “But how are you?”

Yaz looked at her with tired eyes, and the Doctor cringed, seeing an expression she had seen only too many times in the mirror.

“I’m sorry,” she said. “And Ryan?”

“The same,” Yaz said.

“I’m sorry,” the Doctor said again.

“We knew the risks,” Yaz said. “Graham knew the risks. We keep telling ourselves that.” She paused. “Really, though, we’re living our lives. We’re getting by. Sharing a flat, but, you know, could be worse. How are you?”

The Doctor inhaled to answer, but then she stopped mid-breath. How was she? And, more importantly, what was she willing to admit to Yaz?

“Not as alone as I have been,” she said, which was true; she had Astra, and she had Najia. “Afraid I’m going to ruin this baby’s life, though.” _Like I ruined yours._

“You’re not going to ruin her,” Yaz said. “Look, she seems happy.”

“That’s just because I fed her half an hour ago,” the Doctor said. But it was true-- Astra, bouncing on the Doctor’s knee in her little purple onesie, seemed completely content.

“Still,” Yaz said. “Give yourself some credit. You do your best by the ones you love.”

It was forgiveness, in a way. Not that the Doctor deserved to be forgiven, but-- it was nice to know that Yaz didn’t hate her.

“Thanks, Yaz,” the Doctor said. “Maybe I’ll come by for tea while you’re here.”

“Tea at Yaz’s,” Yaz said with a small smile. “Your favorite.”

“Precisely,” the Doctor said. “Maybe I’ll come visit you in Oregon. When Astra’s a bit older. Don’t want to take her traveling just yet.”

“We’d like that,” Yaz said. “Ryan misses you, too, I think. Neither of us are ready to travel with you again, but-- we still like you.”

“Sounds fair,” the Doctor said. “We’re not ready to travel either, quite yet. Maybe we’ll come by in a couple years. Or I suppose we could always go the human way, by airplane.” She scrunched up her face in disgust. “Never fancied airplanes.”

“Better get used to it,” Yaz said. She stood up. “See you around?”

“Definitely,” the Doctor said with a smile.

She stayed on the curb for a while, sitting quietly with Astra on her lap, until finally the sun set and Astra began to cry.

* * *

Astra was one and a half, having had her first steps (which the Doctor had nearly missed, having left Astra with Najia for a moment after tea) and her first word (“TARDIS,” or more accurately “tah-di!”), before the Doctor felt comfortable taking her on even an airplane. She called ahead and even bought the tickets with money she’d been saving from her job (instead of with money she’d sonicked out of an ATM) like a human would.

“This is your first adventure,” she said to Astra, sitting at their gate with Astra sitting in a mobile car seat in her lap and a suitcase by her feet. “Better make the most of it, yeah?”

She got a smile from the person sitting next to her, and she grinned back.

“Travel a lot?” the person asked.

“All the time,” the Doctor told them. “Not by plane, though. And not with children.”

Astra started to cry, and the Doctor scrambled to find the snacks she had packed. The other person chuckled and went back to their book.

The plane ride was long and boring, with a stop in Boston (whose airport advertised live lobster to take on the plane, the Doctor noted. It had been too long since she had traveled; she had forgotten how much she loved strange little quirks like that). Finally, she and a tired, cranky Astra had landed in Portland, Oregon, and were standing at the baggage claim, waiting for their big bag to come onto the conveyor belt.

“Never have to worry about this in the TARDIS,” she muttered to Astra, who was asleep in her arms. “Pretty brilliant, the TARDIS is. Can’t wait until I can show you for real.”

Astra made a little noise in her sleep, and the Doctor smoothed down her curly hair, which had gotten long enough to hover around her head in a little poof. Eventually the Doctor was going to have to figure out how to handle hair like that, she realized. There had been a time when realizations like that had filled her with trepidation, but now, over a year later, she was just excited to learn something new for her daughter.

Their bag came tumbling onto the belt, and the Doctor launched herself forward to grab it, one arm wrapped securely around Astra. The bag having been acquired, the Doctor moved outside. Yaz showed up ten minutes later, taking their bags, hugging them both, asking the Doctor how the trip had been.

“Boring,” the Doctor told her, strapping Astra into a car seat. “I watched six movies, did all the sudoku and the crossword in the in-flight magazine, and still managed to play Tetris for a full hour. How do humans do this? I can’t wait until Astra is old enough for time travel.”

“How old’s that, then?” Yaz asked.

“I don’t know,” the Doctor said. “Old enough to handle herself a bit, I suppose. She bawled most of the first flight, you know. Annoyed everyone around us. Suppose airplanes aren’t much fun if you don’t know what’s happening.”

“I remember Sonya doing that,” Yaz said. “We flew to Spain on holiday one time, when Dad got a bonus at work. She screamed the whole way there.”

“I’m not surprised,” the Doctor said. “Much prefer the TARDIS, if we’re being honest.”

“That’s one thing I miss,” Yaz admitted. “Still. Don’t do much traveling these days anyway.”

“What are you doing these days?” the Doctor asked.

“Studying, mostly,” Yaz said. “Doing university part time. Got my EMT certification, so now I ride in ambulances.”

“Yasmin Khan,” the Doctor said with a smile. “Helping people.”

“That’s me,” Yaz said, her eyes fixed on the road. “Helping people.”

Ryan seemed genuinely excited to see the Doctor, and even more excited to see Astra, who he refused to pick up (“Afraid I’ll drop her,” he explained, even after the Doctor assured him she trusted him, and she didn’t trust lightly) but was more than willing to sit on the floor with, playing games and talking and reading books.

They all went out to eat that night, Ryan, Yaz, the Doctor, and Astra, to a place that sold burgers and fries-- “The local food,” Ryan explained to the Doctor. It felt frighteningly normal, to sit around a table with old friends and a baby who might as well be her daughter. Even in Sheffield, the Doctor was still living out of a bigger-on-the-inside time machine, but so far away from her TARDIS, eating human food in a human restaurant, the Doctor had the distinct impression of being regular in a way she had never experienced before. She had practically made a career out of being an outsider, after all.

“I’ve been calling you Auntie Yaz and Uncle Ryan to Astra,” the Doctor said. “Hope you don’t mind. Just means we have to see each other more often, yeah?”

“Seems fair,” Ryan said, smiling at Astra. He seemed settled, the Doctor realized-- easygoing, friendly, not at all consumed by grief, the way he had been when she had dropped him off in Sheffield. He was becoming a social worker, he told the Doctor on their third day. He wanted to work in the foster care system.

“Thought you were bad with kids,” the Doctor said.

He just shrugged. “Maybe I’ve gotten better,” he said.

The week with Ryan and Yaz (her old best friends, still her best friends, maybe always her best friends) passed faster than the Doctor meant it to. They didn’t talk about Graham-- in a lot of ways, they didn’t need to, after all. It wasn’t until the last night, after the Doctor had put Astra to bed and they were sitting around on sofas, that the Doctor said, “Just so you know, I miss him.”

“Me too,” Ryan said.

“Yeah,” Yaz agreed.

They didn’t say anything more. Perhaps it didn’t need to be said.

The Doctor and Astra packed up early the next morning. Astra, who had only just gotten over her jet lag to begin with, was not at all happy to be woken up, but she fell asleep again in the car on the way to the airport, and the Doctor made sure not to wake her even as they went through security. The flight back was easier, maybe because they both knew what to expect, maybe because they were going home.

Najia picked them up in Sheffield.

“I can’t imagine that was anything like what you’re used to, Doctor,” she said.

“I’ll never take the TARDIS for granted again,” the Doctor agreed.

Najia dropped them off by the TARDIS. The Doctor could feel herself relax the minute she saw the blue exterior, and Astrid called from the back seat, “TARDIS!” The Doctor caught an affectionate smile on Najia’s face.

The Doctor got out of the car and unbuckled Astra from her seat, somehow managing to hold Astra’s hand, the car seat, and two suitcase handles all at once.

“Do you need help?” Najia asked, already halfway out of the car.

“I’ll be fine,” the Doctor replied with a smile. “Right, Astra?”

“TARDIS!” Astra repeated.

“TARDIS!” the Doctor agreed. “Love the TARDIS. Brilliant.”

Stepping into the TARDIS always felt like coming home, and this was no exception. Astra immediately ripped away from the Doctor’s hand and started running around the console, saying hello to everything-- “Hello console! Hello biscuits! Hello crystals!”

The TARDIS hummed in the background, and the Doctor looked up with a smile.

“Hello, TARDIS,” she said. “Don’t let her have too many biscuits, yeah?”

* * *

By the time Astra was three, the Doctor was feeling pretty okay at the whole parenting thing. She had met a couple of other parents who taught at the university, and she had gotten Astra to play with their kids a few times, and she had even enrolled in a mother-daughter music class, which she turned out to be absolutely horrible at sitting still for, always trying to see what was in cupboards or out the window. The instructor had actually laughed at how much worse the Doctor was at sitting still than Astra.

By now, the Doctor had realized that she was destined to stay in Sheffield for some time, and she had managed to get official documents for herself and Astra-- Jane and Astra Smith, they were called now, and as Jane Smith the Doctor opened bank accounts, savings accounts for Astra, everything she could think of. She didn’t really think Astra was going to stick around as an adult, not if she could choose from all of time and space, but it was always good to be prepared.

They had gone back to see Ryan and Yaz once more, and Ryan and Yaz had come to visit-- Yaz had gotten a girlfriend and moved out of the flat, and Ryan had started working with a local branch of Child Protective Services.

“As long as you don’t take Astra away,” the Doctor joked over the phone when she heard the news. She was in the TARDIS library, and Astra was a few feet away, sitting on the floor and looking at a picture book.

“Nah,” Ryan assured her. “You take good care of her.”

And the strange thing was that Ryan seemed to be right. The Doctor still didn’t feel like a good person, didn’t feel like a kind person, didn’t feel like the kind of person who should be a parent-- but she loved Astra, and she was committed to creating the very best childhood she could for her.

* * *

At age five, the Doctor enrolled her in Redland Primary, the same school Ryan and Yaz had gone to. Astra was thrilled-- the Doctor had gotten her a brand new cherry-red backpack from the store, even though the TARDIS had tons in the wardrobe, just to make it feel special, and Astra didn’t take it off for a week before school started. The Doctor braided Astra’s hair special for the first day (she had watched a lot of tutorials online) while Astra bounced with excitement.

“Promise me you’ll learn,” the Doctor told her on the morning of her first day, crouched in front of her in the console room.

“I promise,” Astra said, matching the Doctor’s solemnity perfectly.

“Promise me you’ll ask lots and lots of questions,” the Doctor added.

“Promise,” Astra said.

“Promise me that if you see someone who needs help, you’ll do your best to help,” the Doctor ended.

“I promise,” Astra said.

“Brilliant,” the Doctor said. “I love you, Astra.”

“Love you too, Mum,” Astra said, and they walked out of the TARDIS together.

The Doctor dropped her off at school and walked from there to the university where she taught, trying to wrestle with all her different feelings. She only taught one class on Mondays and then met with a few students, which meant that by noon, she had nothing left to distract herself.

Taking Astra to her classroom and leaving her in the hands of someone else had gotten the Doctor thinking, was the thing. And thinking was dangerous, for the Doctor, because it so often led to overthinking, and obsessing, and then before she knew it she was pacing around the TARDIS, or lying on the floor, or trying to distract herself with some new project.

It was just that-- this was Astra’s first step away from the Doctor. And that wouldn’t have been hard in and of itself, but-- Astra had grown so much. She had gone from being barely two feet long and completely helpless to being over three feet tall, able to argue and get her own food and run all over the place. She had grown, and the Doctor still looked exactly the same as she had when she had found Astra, right down to her haircut. She still wore the same T-shirts and navy pants every day. Astra was going to keep growing, older and older, and the Doctor was going to stay the same, frozen in the moment of her regeneration.

She was in the console room, thinking about this, when she heard a knock at the door. She ran over, coat flapping behind her, and opened the door to see Najia standing there.

“Hello, Najia!” the Doctor exclaimed. “What’s going on? Day off work?”

“I work weekends now,” Najia said. “They give me Mondays. Today’s Astra’s first day of school, isn’t it?”

“Yep,” the Doctor said, trying her hardest to smile.

“How’re you handling it?”

“It’s brilliant,” the Doctor said, pushing the excitement through her sadness. “Couldn’t be prouder. Never was much for school myself, you know.”

“I’ll bet you weren’t,” Najia said, almost fondly. The Doctor remembered for a moment when she had first met Najia, how little Najia had trusted her. It was nice to hear fondness in Najia’s voice now. Reminded the Doctor that she could change, or at least change what other people thought of her, which was almost the same thing.

Astra was brimming with excitement when the Doctor picked her up at the end of the day, and an added anxiety the Doctor had only been vaguely aware she was holding eased off.

“It was brilliant,” Astra told her as they walked back to the TARDIS. “We’re going to learn all sorts of things. And I said I already knew how to read and Miss Henry said that then I can read all by myself if I want to, and we got to color, and I made friends with two other kids in my class. Can I have a biscuit when we get back home?”

“Course you can,” the Doctor said. “It’s never the wrong time to eat a biscuit. Very important that you remember that.”

“Thanks, Mum!” Astra exclaimed, and she skipped ahead, her cherry-red backpack bouncing against her shoulders.

* * *

It was a few weeks into that first year when Astra asked the Doctor the question she’d been dreading.

“Wren at school says she came from inside her mummy,” she said. She and the Doctor were sitting in the kitchen and coloring. The Doctor had given her a set of hologram crayons from the 34th century on the condition that she not show any of her friends, and Astra had taken to them immediately. “Did I come from inside of you?”

“Not really,” the Doctor said, putting down her crayon. “It’s complicated. Most little girls like you come from their mums. You came from someone else.”

“Are you not my mum?” Astra asked. She had put down her crayon, too, and was looking at the Doctor with wide eyes.

“Of course I am,” the Doctor said. “It’s not about who you came out of. Your other mum who you came out of isn’t really around anymore, but I found you, and I’m going to be the best mum I can be for you.”

“What happened to her?” Astra asked.

The Doctor hesitated.

“I don’t know,” she said, honestly. “I’m going to find out someday. When you’re a bit older. You’re from very far away, Astra.”

“How far?” Astra asked.

“Farther than you can imagine,” the Doctor said. “And from a different time, too.” Astra already knew the TARDIS could travel in time and space; the Doctor hadn’t made any secret of that. She had been telling Astra highly sanitized stories of her travels since before she was old enough to listen. “The TARDIS told me there was somewhere I needed to go, and I went there, and I found you. And then I left because it was dangerous and I didn’t want you to get hurt.”

“Is that why I don’t look like you?” Astra asked, tugging at her braided hair. “Because I had another mum?”

“Exactly why,” the Doctor said. “But don’t think that means I love you any less, all right?”

Astra nodded.

“Promise?” the Doctor asked.

“Promise,” Astra said, and she went back to coloring. The Doctor counted the conversation a success and got up to start making dinner.

* * *

In the weeks that followed, Astra got invited on numerous playdates with the other kids in her class. The Doctor let her go, of course, but became more and more worried about the day when inevitably Astra would want to have someone over and she would have to explain that not everyone knew about the TARDIS.

Fortunately, Najia got to her before that day came-- she was coming back with her shopping when she noticed a mother dropping Astra off by Park Hill, the Doctor waiting on the sidewalk. She called out a hello, and the Doctor immediately ran over, asking if she needed help carrying her bags up the stairs.

“After all,” she said, “when people need help--”

“We never refuse!” Astra finished with a grin.

Najia, smiling, gave the Doctor a couple of bags and Astra a loaf of bread to carry up the stairs. Once up at the flat, she let Astra put away some of the groceries as she sat at the table with the Doctor and said, “So, Astra’s been making friends?”

“Sure has,” the Doctor said with a grin. “I was worried, you know. Given her upbringing isn’t exactly conventional.”

“You know,” Najia said, “if she ever wants to have someone over, you can use the flat.”

The Doctor looked up.

“Really?” she asked.

“‘Course,” Najia said. “Been a bit empty around here, anyway.” Sonya had moved out a year before, and the flat had indeed seemed a little bare since.

“Sorry I drove your daughter away,” the Doctor said. “Yaz, I mean. Although I suppose Sonya never seemed entirely comfortable with me around either.”

“It would’ve happened eventually,” Najia said. “That’s how it works, Doctor. Kids grow up, move away. I miss them both, but it’s for the best.” She nodded at Astra, coming towards them from the kitchen. “Before you know it, she’ll be making a life for herself.”

“Suppose that’s the best I could hope for,” the Doctor said, hoisting Astra onto her lap. “Never expected to be a mother. ‘Course, part of that is due to being a man for two thousand years.”

“I don’t think I’ll ever understand you, Doctor,” Najia said. She nodded at Astra.  “But you’re doing a great job with her.”

“Thanks,” the Doctor said. “Suppose there’s something to be said for settling down a bit. Although in a few years we’ll start exploring a bit, if she wants.”

“I want to explore!” Astra said.

The Doctor pulled her into a great big hug, and Astra giggled.

“Someday,” the Doctor told her.

* * *

The day came when Astra was seven. She was still tiny, in the Doctor’s eyes, and she would have waited a year or two yet, except that Astra left school one day noticeably subdued, and the Doctor was never able to let anyone stay subdued without at least trying to do something about it.

“You all right?” she asked as they walked home.

“Yeah,” Astra said. “I’m okay.”

“You sure?” the Doctor asked.

Astra didn’t answer.

“I think you’ve picked up on my habits, Astra,” the Doctor said with a poke. Astra giggled. “Saying you’re okay when you’re not. But, you know. Won’t push it.”

They walked in silence for another minute before Astra spoke.

“Some kids at school were saying you’re not my real mum,” she said. “Because we look different. And they think you’re funny because you always wear the same clothes.”

“Oi, I wash them!” the Doctor said, then thought better of it. “Sorry. Not the point.” She stopped walking and knelt next to Astra, who was looking back with solemn eyes. “Sometimes people aren’t very nice to people who are different. But you know it’s always okay, right? You’re beautiful, and you know something?”

“What?” Astra asked, transfixed.

“I like my clothes.”

Astra laughed, and the Doctor straightened up, deep in thought. By the time they were back at the TARDIS, she had a plan.

“Astra,” she said, turning at the door. “Do you remember how I said the TARDIS can go anywhere in time and space?”

Astra nodded. The Doctor could see a flicker of hope in her eye, and she couldn’t help but feel a grin pop onto her face.

“Want to see?”

Astra’s grin mirrored the Doctor’s perfectly.

“We won’t go far,” the Doctor cautioned. “Think of it as a practice trip. I haven’t gone anywhere in seven years, you know.”

“That’s so long,” Astra said.

“It’s been worth it,” the Doctor said, moving to the console. Her hands danced across the levers and dials like it had been yesterday.  “Traveling like I do is dangerous, you know. And when I found you, you were much too little for any kind of danger. Still are, really. Which is why we’re not going far.”

“Where are we going?” Astra asked, at the Doctor’s heels.

“Just as far as New York,” the Doctor said. “You want to do it with me?”

“Yes, please!” Astra exclaimed.

The Doctor picked her up and showed her where to put her hand.

“Ready?” she asked, her free hand positioned parallel Astra’s over the lever.

“Ready!” Astra said.

The Doctor and Astra slammed the lever down, and the TARDIS engines groaned. The Doctor couldn’t help but let out an exhilarated laugh at the sound, so welcome after so many years, feeling the TARDIS’s usual hum in the back of her mind swell with joy. Still holding Astra in one arm, she darted around the console, just like old times, spinning through time and space. (Or, well, just space, this time around.)

They landed, and the Doctor set Astra down on the floor. Astra immediately ran for the doors, and the Doctor hurried after her. Astra looked up for approval, and the Doctor gave her a nod and a smile. Astra pushed the door open, leaning against it with both hands, and stepped out right onto Times Square.

The Doctor followed, tasting the air as she went-- her aim had been true, this time, and she was in New York, United States, Earth.

“Brilliant,” she said. “Hold my hand, yeah? Can’t have you getting lost.”

Astra’s hand found hers, and they started pushing through the crowd. The Doctor scanned the billboards and flashing signs and quickly found what she was looking for.

“Here we go,” she said, looking down at Astra’s wonder-filled eyes. “Good thing we’ve got the psychic paper, right?”

She pulled Astra towards the theater. It was sort of a silly trip, in some ways-- going to see a kids’ show on Broadway-- the sort of thing she would’ve done with some of her old friends if they’d had a particularly rough adventure. Which made it the perfect introductory trip for Astra: safe, fun, easy. The Doctor charmed a way inside with the psychic paper, and then she and Astra were sitting in the theater, grinning with anticipation.

“This is my favorite part,” the Doctor said. “Before the curtain rises.”

“I don’t have a favorite part yet,” Astra said. “I have to see the play first.”

But when the play ended, Astra couldn’t declare a favorite part-- she babbled about all of it as they left the theater. The Doctor got them both T-shirts-- Astra protested that the Doctor only ever wore the same shirt, but the Doctor squeezed her hand and said, “Might be time to change it up a bit, yeah? We can match! Always wanted to try matching.”

They went out to dinner, some burger place the Doctor remembered from the time Donna had wanted to go to “some sort of American cliche.” Astra was filled with so much glee that the Doctor couldn’t figure out how she fit a whole cheeseburger in there too, but she managed it, and a whole milkshake besides. (Not that the Doctor ate any less or with any less enthusiasm, but she was much larger than Astra, and also a near-immortal Time Lord.)

It was getting dark as they walked back to the TARDIS. The Doctor loved the semi-darkness after a long day-- even in a time machine, the cycles of a planet’s sun and stars made a difference.

By the time they got back to the TARDIS, Astra was half asleep. The Doctor picked her up and carried her the last few blocks, poking the door open with her toe. She tried not to disturb Astra too much as she piloted the TARDIS back to Sheffield-- Astra stirred a bit as the engines started up, but she quickly settled again, her head nestled into the Doctor’s shoulder. The Doctor hummed an old song from Gallifrey, one she hadn’t thought about for a while, as she checked the monitors and brought Astra through the TARDIS corridors to her bedroom. She laid Astra down on the bed with care-- she pulled off Astra’s shoes, but Astra was still awake enough to burrow under the covers. The Doctor tucked the blankets around her, smoothed down her hair, and, after a moment of hesitation, leaned down to kiss her on the forehead.

“Night, Astra,” she said, and she turned off the light on her way out.

* * *

Astra came home from school with a flyer for a “cultural heritage day” one day when she was ten.

“They’re asking parents to come in and share some of that culture,” Astra said. “I said you probably couldn’t, but they told me to ask.”

“No, I can come in,” the Doctor said with a rush of excitement. “I’ve got loads of cultural heritage. Really.”

Astra giggled.

“Even though you’re not from Earth?” she asked.

“I’ll just tell them it’s someplace far away,” the Doctor said. “They won’t know the difference.”

“Okay,” Astra said. “I’ll tell Miss Linn you’re going to come, then.” She handed the Doctor the flyer.

The Doctor spent a long time trying to decide what she was going to bring for that day. The food on Gallifrey was boring, so definitely not that-- the history and stories were all tied up in the whole time travel thing, and after thirteen years of living on Earth, she had learned that talking about that in the wrong circumstances would only make her daughter’s friends think she was crazy. She was at a complete loss.

And then she remembered the music: songs she had been singing to Astra since Astra was a kid, songs from her own childhood, songs from Gallifrey. The Doctor didn’t have many fond memories of Gallifrey, but the music was one of them.

She put together a whole display-- Astra said it was a fair sort of thing where everyone walked around and checked out different booths, so the Doctor found a few old instruments she half-remembered being able to play. She spent hours while Astra was asleep relearning, singing her favorite songs, letting her native language dance on her tongue. The TARDIS wouldn’t translate this for anyone; it would come out exactly as it was meant to be heard. (The Doctor had disabled the translation circuits for Astra, anyway, after her school had started teaching her French and she came home confused because the whole class was in English.)

Astra had also managed to persuade Najia and her husband Hakim to present, so when the day came, the four of them loaded displays, instruments, and food into Najia’s car and drove to the school. Astra brought them to the gym where the fair was being set up and then hugged each of them before running off to her classroom.

Twenty minutes later, they were situated at adjacent tables in a room full of slightly awkward parents and grandparents from various countries. There hadn’t really been any coordination with the whole thing; there were at least four different tables representing Pakistan in addition to Najia and Hakim, and three others from Ireland. But Najia and Hakim had focused on food (Hakim would take any excuse to cook for a group, after all), and one of the other tables was focused on clothes, and another was looking at folklore. And of course, there was no one else representing Gallifrey.

The Doctor had gotten out her old Gallifreyan ceremonial robes for the occasion. Technically, she had been disgraced many times over, and was no longer allowed to wear these robes, but-- it wasn’t like the High Council was going to come down to the gym of Redlands Primary and lecture her for wearing the wrong robes. Anyway, wasn’t she president now? She could wear her robes to  her daughter’s school’s culture fair if she wanted to.

The kids came in in a giant stream. Immediately, Astra had dragged a group of friends over to the Doctor, Najia, and Hakim, saying, “The food is really good and my mum knows some amazing music, Mum, play them a song!”

“‘Course,” the Doctor said, picking up her favorite. It was a stringed instrument, but it responded with different tones if its player breathed differently on its base. It was especially gorgeous but especially difficult when the player sung, responding to changes in dynamic and pitch with equal subtlety. The Doctor had always had a knack for it, and now she began a song she had learned when she was a kid, letting her voice mingle with the reverberating notes of the instrument and the hubbub of everything else going on in the gym. She lost track of Astra and her friends, of the culture fair, and suddenly she felt like she was a kid on Gallifrey again, sitting in her music class and trying her hardest to get small fingers and harsh breaths to create some kind of beauty. She tried not to think about Gallifrey often-- it filled her with a combination of sadness and guilt and anger-- but moments like these were nice, when she could share something with Astra, remember the better parts of her childhood.

As her song drew to a close, she realized that the hubbub of the fair really had faded away, and nearly every face was turned towards her. She smiled awkwardly and shrugged, pushing the instrument to the side.

“Anyway,” she said. “That’s one of my favorites.”

“Where’s she from?” one of the surrounding kids whispered to Astra as the room started to buzz again.

“It’s called Gallifrey,” Astra replied. “It’s really far from here.”

“Can I touch that?” another kid asked the Doctor.

“Sure,” she said. “Don’t break it, it’s the only one I have. Maybe the only one in existence, now.”

“Whoa,” the kid said, running a hand along the base. The instrument hummed. The sound was barely perceptible (to a human ear, anyway), but the kid seemed entirely transfixed. “This is from Gallifrey?”

“Yep,” the Doctor said.

“I want to go to Gallifrey,” the kid said.

“Good luck with that,” Astra said. The Doctor winked at her. Astra moved on to talk to Najia and Hakim (and eat their food, despite protests that she already knew what Pakistani food tasted like, she ate it all the time, and shouldn’t she leave some for the others?) with a smile.

* * *

Astra was thirteen when she brought home the family tree assignment. The Doctor was baffled at first-- “What do they want to know about your family for?” she asked, staring blankly at the assignment sheet.

“Mrs. Wilson thinks it’ll be fun,” Astra said, a little miserably. “I told her I haven’t got a family but she just said I should map yours.”

“Much easier said than done,” the Doctor said.

“That’s what I thought,” Astra replied. She shrugged. “Might just make some stuff up. Can I make stuff up? Is that okay with you?”

“Only if you let me help,” the Doctor said with a grin. “It’s my family, after all. Not that I endorse any kind of academic dishonesty, of course.” She paused. “And I’ll tell you if you ever want to know about my real family.”

Astra smiled.

“Thanks,” she said. She took the assignment sheet back from the Doctor, and her smile melted away. “I sort of just wish I had an easy answer.”

“I wish I could give you one,” the Doctor said. “Or, better yet, I wish you could know your birth family.”

She saw in Astra’s eyes when the idea hit her.

“Couldn’t we go back there in the TARDIS?” she asked. “Just to see?” Since the play, they had gone on random trips every month or so-- never too far, never through time, just various jaunts on Earth.

“We could,” the Doctor said. “If you’re sure you’re ready.”

“I’m ready,” Astra said. “I promise.”

“It’s much, much further than we’ve ever gone before,” the Doctor said. “It might not be safe. There’s something there that killed your parents, and it could kill us.”

She held eye contact with Astra, trying to understand what she saw, trying to communicate her love. Astra looked back at her, uncertain, afraid. The Doctor was hit all of a sudden by how much she had grown, this girl she had found as an infant, completely helpless, now old enough to make her own choices, to decide to take a risk.

“I want to go,” Astra said.

The Doctor nodded.

“There are going to be some rules, though,” she said. “I want you to be safe. Don’t leave my side. If you lose me, get back to the TARDIS as fast as you can. We’re not going to look for whatever killed your parents today, we’re just going to go and take a look around and try not to get killed ourselves. Don’t take unnecessary risks. Got it?”

“Got it,” Astra said. A smile played at the corners of her mouth. “Because you’ve never taken unnecessary risks.”

“I didn’t say I wouldn’t,” the Doctor replied. “But you’re just a kid, Astra. You’ve got years and years ahead of you to take risks. Just this one trip, stay safe.”

“Okay,” Astra said.

“Right, then,” the Doctor said. “Ready?”

“Ready,” Astra repeated.

It had become a bit of a tradition, since that first trip, to press the lever together. Of course, the Doctor no longer had to physically hold Astra up, but she still liked the connection of an electric grin before launching the TARDIS off to places unknown. This was a different sort of adventure, but the Doctor still couldn’t suppress her grin-- finally, after thirteen years, she was going to be taking the TARDIS through time again, to a planet with a mystery to solve, and sure, there was a lot of emotional baggage attached and a teenager to take care of, but still: this was finally a proper adventure.

They landed a street over from where the Doctor’s TARDIS had landed years before., and three days earlier.

“You’ve got to be careful,” the Doctor warned Astra before they left, remembering a different adventure. “The baby version of you is out there. We probably won’t see her, but if we do, you can’t touch her..”

Astra nodded solemnly.

“Ready?” the Doctor asked.

Astra nodded again, and they left the TARDIS together.

They stepped out onto a bright sunlit street, lined with the same metal houses the Doctor remembered from all those years ago. She glanced at Astra, who was usually bouncing with excitement when they took their trips-- this time, she was completely still.

“You all right?” the Doctor asked.

“Is this really a different planet?” Astra asked.

“Yep,” the Doctor said. “And a different time. Your home, in some ways.”

Astra was silent for a moment.

“I think I didn’t really believe it,” she said. “That I wasn’t from Earth.”

“You’re not any different from anyone else in that century,” the Doctor said.

“I know,” Astra said. “Even with the alien mother who takes me on weird international adventures that I can’t tell anyone about and embarrasses me at the school plays.”

“Oi, I’m not embarrassing!” the Doctor exclaimed.

“Mum,” Astra said, “you are so embarrassing.”

“Fine,” the Doctor said. “Good thing you’ve got another mother out here somewhere, I suppose. One who’s not embarrassing.”

“And is dead in two weeks,” Astra said. “Come on, Mum. Let’s go.”

The Doctor had had the vague plans of this trip floating in her mind since… well, since she had decided she was going to keep Astra, really. She had always known someday they would have to come back. She knew she’d have to walk Astra by the house in which she’d been born, maybe take her to eat somewhere, and then bring her right back home.

And that’s what she did. They walked past the house (distinguishable only from the Doctor’s memory), and then the Doctor found the colony’s one restaurant, and they sat down to eat New Earth food (which was a lot like old Earth food, all things considered). Astra had been nearly silent the whole time, which on one hand was expected but on the other hand was so completely out of the norm for her that the Doctor couldn’t help but worry.

“You all right?” she asked.

“I’m okay,” Astra said.

“Good,” the Doctor said. “Love being okay.”

“Yeah,” Astra said, taking a bite of her pasta. She chewed for a moment, then said, “Is this what my life would’ve been like? If I’d been raised here?”

“Possibly,” the Doctor said. “You would’ve grown up in a brand new colony, with some of the first humans to escape Earth.”

Astra thought about that for a moment.

“I like how I grew up,” she said. “I don’t want to escape.”

“Glad to hear it,” the Doctor said. “You know, if you did, I could take you anywhere you wanted to go.”

Astra shook her head.

“I think I just want to go home,” she said.

* * *

The Doctor started taking Astra through time, after that, and to places further away. Still only the tamest, safest of adventures-- an amusement park on Mars in the future, a quick trip to a time Astra had been learning about in school. She even let Astra take a friend or two a couple of times, which was great fun. They visited Yaz and Ryan whenever they could, too, and once even went to see Martha Jones, who still lived in London with Mickey.

They didn’t go back to New Earth again.

Astra finished school. They spent a lot of time in her last two years talking about what happened next-- Astra wanted to go far away to university, and the Doctor planned to stick around for Najia and Hakim, who were needing a little more help now that they were getting older and their kids had moved away, and the Doctor, ever young, had been supporting them. She missed traveling, and maybe she would do a bit more of it after Astra left, but she didn’t mind. She had gotten used to human life, however slow it was, however boring. It was almost meditative, going through each day in the right order, having so much time to consider every little thing.

So Astra went to university in America, near where Yaz lived with her wife. The Doctor took her in the TARDIS, helped her unpack, made Yaz promise to take care of her, pretended she wasn’t trying not to cry, pretended she didn’t look at least ten years younger than all the other mothers dropping off their kids. She took Astra and Yaz to dinner that night, and then Astra went off to her dorm, and the Doctor went back to the TARDIS, feeling strangely bereft.

But she had been waiting for years for this.

So she made herself move to the TARDIS console, and she made herself twist the dials, and she made herself push the lever, and then she stood and waited, strangely separate, while the TARDIS engines grumbled.

She landed on New Earth, minutes after she had taken Astra away.

She walked out of the TARDIS.

The street looked the same.

The Doctor walked into the house she’d taken Astra from. Her human mother’s body was still on the couch, one arm resting on her lap, one hand pressing the distress signal. The Doctor looked into the kitchen and the bedrooms, left the house, and started knocking on doors.

She found some people two doors down, huddled in their kitchen, barely willing to open the door. They told her about what had happened, the leaders of the colony abusing their power, deciding the only option was to kill anyone who disagreed.

The Doctor listened to what they had to say. She listened, and then she stood up and started walking. She walked out the door, down the street, all the way to the center of the colony. All the while, she tried to talk herself out of what she was about to do, but it was no use. She was angry, the sort of cold anger that filled her up and hardened into determination. These people had left Astra, her Astra, who danced around the TARDIS in the mornings and had been trying to write a novel for years and asked questions about everything she saw, they had left her without a mother, all alone, and so she marched into their building, found the people at the top, trapped them in a sonic cage, marched them back to the TARDIS, and found them prisons across the universe.

This was clean-up.

Anger was still coursing through her veins, the same cold anger, but it was overwhelmed by exhaustion by the time she got back to Sheffield. The TARDIS engines ground to a halt, and the Doctor flopped onto the floor, limbs sprawled.

That was how Najia found her, having heard the engines and come down to check in. The TARDIS doors had been unlocked, apparently, or maybe the TARDIS just opened for Najia the same way it opened for the Doctor or for Astra, and Najia was able to push her way inside.

“How are you?” she asked from the doorway.

“Fine,” the Doctor said, still lying on the floor.

Najia took a few steps closer.

“I know you,” she said. “You’re never fine when you say you’re fine.”

“Fine, then,” the Doctor said. “I will be fine. I’m always fine eventually. It’s not that much of a lie.”

“You sound like Yaz,” Najia said. “Every time I call and ask how she is, if she’s having a hard time she says she’ll be okay down the line.”

“I know,” said the Doctor, who tended to drop in on Yaz with absolutely no warning at least twice a year. It was a habit she only planned on increasing now Astra was going to school nearby. “Doesn’t mean we’re not right.”

“Suppose that’s why you’re friends,” Najia said. She paused. “I’ll leave you be. But you’re welcome to come up to the flat anytime.”

“Thanks,” the Doctor said, staring at the ceiling. She heard footsteps, and then a creak as the door closed behind Najia. The Doctor sighed.

“Alone again,” she said. The TARDIS beeped in response.

* * *

She went back to see Astra over Thanksgiving, for which the American university gave a week off. Both of them, plus Ryan, stayed with Yaz and her wife Rachel (who had been thoroughly briefed on the whole alien-time-and-space-travel thing beforehand) and had a traditional Thanksgiving dinner-- “I was at the original,” the Doctor couldn’t help but say, while Yaz and Astra rolled their eyes-- while Astra told the Doctor all about her classes and her roommate and the parties she went to-- “I stay safe, don’t worry,” she added, while the Doctor nodded along and Yaz looked a little scandalized.

“I believe you,” the Doctor said. “Anyway, it’s not life if you don’t take a few risks.”

“Is this how you’ve raised her?” Yaz asked.

“Like we expected anything else,” Ryan said, pulling stuffing onto his plate.

Ryan and Yaz were both nearing forty now, but they and the Doctor got along the same as ever, really-- maybe with a certain amount of underlying sadness, but that was to be expected, after what had happened to Graham. But Astra called Yaz and Ryan aunt and uncle, and they really were like family, insofar as the Doctor could have family. Sitting around the table, celebrating a holiday none of them cared much about, laughing and poking fun at each other, some small part of the ache in the Doctor’s heart was filled with something approaching joy.

* * *

Hakim died the next year. Astra and Yaz and Ryan all came to the funeral-- Astra missed classes to stay a few days with the Doctor and Najia. The Doctor made sure she knew she could stay as long as she needed, but Astra insisted she’d be fine to go back in under a week.

“You really take after me,” the Doctor told her after the funeral. They were sitting on the curb next to the TARDIS, talking about their plans moving ahead. “Saying you’ll be fine after a few days.”

“I have to be,” Astra said. “I’m planning this event at school, and I have to be back in time.”

“Time machine,” the Doctor said, gesturing at the TARDIS.

Astra shook her head.

“I want to be linear,” she said. “I don’t want to be older than I should be in my own timeline.”

“I know,” the Doctor said. “Thought this might be an exception. You know. Grief.”

“Actually,” Astra said, “it’s even more important. I’m human, Mum. I always sort of knew you were different, but-- it didn’t really sink in until now what that means. Like, I’ve gotten older and older and you’re still the same age. You’re going to go to Najia’s funeral, and Yaz’s, and then you’re going to go to mine. I can’t jump around like that. I mean, trips, sure, I love the trips, but I feel like-- I have to live in a line, I think.”

“Of course,” the Doctor said. “And I want you to know-- I’m living in a line, too, right now. Every time you see me it’s been the same amount of time for me as it’s been for you. And I’m going to keep doing it that way.” Until you die, she didn’t say..

“Thanks,” Astra said. She leaned against the Doctor’s shoulder. “You’re a good mum.”

“Glad you think so,” the Doctor said.

* * *

The Doctor moved in fully with Najia after that-- Najia had said numerous times that she was fine, she’d be fine on her own, the Doctor was only just downstairs anyway, but the Doctor insisted. She didn’t want Najia to be lonely.

Astra kept coming home for school breaks until the second summer, when she said she wanted to get a job-- the Doctor visited a couple of times, once even taking Najia (who, for all her years of friendship with the Doctor, had never been on a trip in the TARDIS before). Astra seemed happy, on her own. The Doctor was proud, but she couldn’t help the shard of sadness still embedded in her chest.

Astra graduated with a double degree in anthropology and linguistics. The Doctor attended her ceremony with Najia and Yaz and Ryan and pretended not to cry when Astra’s name was called. Astra looked so grown-up, walking across the stage in a black robe, hair bouncing behind her in a hundred little braids. The Doctor remembered braiding her hair for the first time years ago, trying to follow a tutorial on the TARDIS screen while also keeping the toddler Astra still. She thought about Astra’s first day of school, with her new backpack and a giant smile. Ahead of her, Astra was wearing the exact same smile, diploma clutched in one hand, and it was all the Doctor could do not to run up and hug her. (She did actually try a little bit, but Yaz pulled her back by the fabric of her jacket and she sat back down again, sulking only a little.)

They all went out to dinner, after. Astra was practically glowing with excitement. She was going to go to grad school, she said, learn more and more and more, learning things she could only learn in this time period.

“Since my mum’s got a time machine,” she explained with a grin. “If I want to learn history I’ll just harass her into taking me.”

“You know it’s not that hard,” the Doctor admonished. “I’ll take you anywhere. I’ll take anyone anywhere. Ryan? Yaz? Najia?”

All three of them shook their heads.

“Sorry, mate,” Ryan said. “That ship’s sailed.”

The Doctor shrugged.

“Guess I’ll just have to drop in on you more often, then,” she said.

“To pester us into coming with you or to actually visit?” Yaz asked.

“Both,” the Doctor said, unabashed. She looked to Yaz’s wife. “Rachel? You want in?”

“Only if Yaz goes,” Rachel said.

“Not fair,” Yaz said. “I’ve settled down. Got a wife and a job and everything.”

“I’m counting on you to convince her,” the Doctor said to Rachel.

“You have a weird family, Yaz,” Rachel said.

“I know,” Yaz replied. “I love it.”

The Doctor looked sideways at Astra, who was watching the banter with a smile. She looked happy, the Doctor thought. Genuinely happy.

* * *

She had started traveling a bit again, but she stopped almost entirely as Najia got older; Najia was beginning to lose her memory, and the Doctor felt like, after all Najia had done for her, the least she could do was make sure Najia could always find her reading glasses. And if she did it by finding fifty extra pairs scattered across the TARDIS wardrobe and leaving them around the flat, well, at least she was helping.

Najia (unfortunately, inevitably) died three years after Astra’s graduation. Yaz and Sonya were both there, having come back just in time. They and Astra clung close to Najia’s bedside while the Doctor hung awkwardly around the edges, somehow not quite feeling like family, until Astra gave her a look and pulled her into the circle.

When Najia closed her eyes for the last time, Astra and Yaz and Sonya and the Doctor all joined hands around her, heads bowed. They weren’t praying (or at least, the Doctor wasn’t), but there was something spiritual about it all the same.

It had been a long time since the Doctor had lost someone as part of a family.

She missed Najia.

She loved Astra.

Someday, she would miss Astra too.

* * *

After that, she didn’t have anything tying her to Sheffield but her own nostalgia. She kept herself parked there when she couldn’t think of anywhere else to go, but more often than not, she was traveling, back to her old lifestyle. She quit her job at the university, counted the days, made sure to go back to Earth and to Astra at least once a month, and spent most of her time traveling the universe, as usual.

In this way, Astra grew older— at first the Doctor was dropping in on tiny flats and lots of roommates, then just Astra, working alone, and then a girlfriend, and another, and a third. Every time the Doctor visited, she brought something from somewhere else, and Astra put it on her windowsill.

* * *

Astra got married when she was thirty-three, to a woman named Lizzie who she’d met working on a community theater production. The Doctor went to the wedding in a tuxedo rented from a nearby shop— she walked Astra down the aisle. She looked young enough to be Astra’s sister, she knew, but everyone Astra invited knew the truth, and everyone Lizzie invited didn’t seem to care. It was a small ceremony, a small reception, and if Astra and Lizzie went to Mars on their honeymoon, well— Lizzie’s family didn’t need to know that.

* * *

Eventually Astra adopted children of her own, and the Doctor was a grandparent again. She loved it— she stopped by as often as she could, bringing little toys and gifts and treats, giving the kids tours of the TARDIS and letting them stay overnight in Astra’s old room, trying to ignore the fact that Astra looked older than her now, sitting on the TARDIS floor watching a new set of kids climb all over the console.

The Doctor lowered herself down next to Astra. She didn’t say anything, and neither did Astra— they just watched, together, a mother and a daughter.

* * *

Years passed. Astra grew older. Her hair grew gray. Her bones grew brittle. Her children grew up. And all the while, the Doctor stayed blonde and spry, herself almost childlike. She couldn’t bear to be back on Earth for long, or too often; every glance at Astra was a reminder of her own age, of the fact that Astra, eventually, would die, and the Doctor would only regenerate, over and over and over. Better to distance herself now than to suffer more later.

But she came back every few months, whenever the sadness of missing her family overruled the sadness of her own longevity. She visited Astra, she visited Astra’s children, eventually she was attending family reunions and taking Astra’s grandchildren on adventures. Astra turned into a sort of matriarch; the Doctor was… well, she sort of fancied herself a quirky aunt, really, coming through every so often for an adventure and a hug. It was best to leave it at that.

* * *

She knew immediately when Astra died.

She had an alert set on the TARDIS— any quirks in the fabric of space and time around Astra or her family, and the Doctor came running. It had worked when Astra’s youngest had had an ear infection, it had worked when Astra and Lizzie had gone bungee jumping (which, to be fair, hadn’t actually been a near-death experience, but better safe than sorry), and it worked when Astra, two weeks shy of ninety, had a stroke.

The Doctor flew the TARDIS back to Earth in a daze. She had been through this before, but she still didn’t understand: Astra, whose hair the Doctor had braided on her first day of kindergarten; Astra, whose dress the Doctor had zipped on her wedding day; Astra, who had shown her children and grandchildren the TARDIS with a brilliant grin on her face; Astra, who the Doctor had found as a helpless infant, and who had grown into such a capable woman, was dead, and the Doctor would never see her again.

She stepped out of the TARDIS, face set in a grim line, to see Astra’s oldest granddaughter,  Claudia, standing at the doors. Claudia was in her late twenties now, and was holding her own baby— something about that melted the Doctor’s sadness a little, seeing new life.

“How are you?” Claudia asked.

“Fine,” the Doctor said. The word tasted bitter on her tongue. It always did, really.

“We thought you might want some space,” Claudia explained. “Which is why we didn’t all come to greet you.”

The Doctor thought about the family, the children she had seen grow up, the children who were still young, and her sadness melted a little more.

“That’s all right,” she said. “Think I need some family, right about now.”

“We definitely have that,” Claudia said, and the Doctor managed a smile.

* * *

Astra’s funeral was peaceful. There was a small ceremony, a celebration of her life, with lots of room for reflection and contemplation and love. After, the whole family sat in the living room of the house Astra and Lizzie had shared, exchanging stories, eating together, laughing and crying in equal measure. The Doctor sat in the corner, feeling a little distant, a little separate. Great-grandchildren eventually clambered on top of her, and she held them, the memory of holding Astra up on her first trip in the TARDIS close to her heart.

* * *

She stayed for a day and a night, and then she left, hugging each and every relative goodbye as she went. Each motion delicate, fragile, even, she launched herself into the time vortex and stood, TARDIS gurgling in the background, staring at the central console.

“Suppose it’s just me and you,” she said, running a hand over the console.

The TARDIS beeped. The Doctor closed her eyes. She bowed her head.

“I miss her already,” she said.

The TARDIS bubbled in response.

 

**Author's Note:**

> Follow me on tumblr @ regenderate and my creative blog @ burclay


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